the new shmoo

this is a hanna-barberacartoon that ran on NBC from 1979 to 1980 on saturday mornings (before my time, really, although i was born in 1980, so it's perfectly possible i could blame a lot of my quirks on psychological trauma due to seeing this show as a baby). it featured a comic strip... thing created by al capp, which doesn't resemble a bowling pin so much as a seal with legs. if you can't guess, its name was shmoo. it's pretty damn stupid-looking.

shmoo's voice was done by frank welker (on reflection, i wonder what sort of voice it could have possibly had?), and in the show he helps three kid reporters investigating "cases of psychicphenomena" for mighty mysteries comics. so i guess it's sort of like scooby doo. except shmoo is a shapeshifter.

the title got even funnier when hanna-barbera started mixing the episodes with those of the new fred and barney show-- eventually it was renamed to fred and barney meet the shmoo.

(this is all according to http://www.hotyellow98.com/tooncentral/toons/newshmoo.html)